Picture the birthplace of the modern labor movement's most charged memory, right on this spot. On May 4, 1886, workers gathered here on Desplaines Street for a peaceful rally supporting the fight for the eight-hour workday. As police moved to break it up, someone threw a bomb, and the gunfire that followed killed seven officers and several civilians.
In the panic that followed, eight anarchists were tried in an atmosphere of hysteria; four were hanged, though the bomb-thrower was never identified, and the Illinois governor later pardoned the survivors, calling the trial a travesty. Out of Haymarket came International Workers' Day, May Day, marked across the world. A bronze memorial of a speaker's wagon now stands on the spot.
Read the plaques set around it, then imagine the gaslit crowd on this quiet street and the single thrown spark that echoed around the globe.